Gary Busey is The Gingerdead Man. If that does not conjure up enough horror for a person, the rest of the film will with its atrocious dialogue and ridiculous special effects. Directed by Charles Band in-between his various Puppet Master films, The Gingerdead Man is essentially more of the same, simply with some magical gingerbread mix rather than magical puppets. The film is supposed to be a horror-comedy, but there are no laughs to be had as the humour is extremely forced and corny to boot. There are a couple of one-liners which are not the worst to be had, but they do not make up for the rest of the bad that surrounds them.

The story concerns a tale of revenge, one enacted by murderer Millard Findlemeyer played by the aforementioned Busey. After killing a number of people, being caught, sentenced and executed all on a girl named Sarah’s word, a victim that he left alive, he comes back with a little help from his mom and the ineptness of Sarah and her friend Brick. As Millard’s mom was a witch, she mixed his ashes in some gingerbread mix and sent it over to the bakery where Sarah works. Of course, things happen and she bakes up a giant gingerbread man who comes alive as the newly reincarnated Millard. As the body count rises, the same question that plagued you during the Puppet Master franchise does so here as you continually wonder just how it is that a bunch of grown people cannot defeat a small little gingerbread man.

While the actual puppet that was The Gingerdead Man looked like an awful doll, when it came to animating it, it was not all bad. He had a limited range of movements compared to other puppet movies released by Full Moon, but the puppet itself was not the worst that this film had to offer. The story was decent, the dialogue terrible and most of the acting right there along with it. Out of everyone, Robin Sydney was the better of them if a little whiny at times, yet hardly leading-woman material. What was a little annoying was the fact that the soundtrack was lifted straight from the Puppet Master films. Sure the budget was non-existent, but a new score would have been nice. As a whole, the entire film could have been improved upon and surprisingly was not the worst thing that Charles Band would ever put out. Charles Band, Gary Busey and Full Moon are all you really need to say about this film to know what you are getting yourself in for and while The Gingerdead Man is a really bad movie, it is also one that is somehow inexplicably enjoyable at the same time.

2.5 out of 5